


Richie Tozier: On grief, childhood trauma, friendship and love

by nucodiangelo



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt No Comfort, Interview, M/M, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), im sorry for this, its kinda both
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:35:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29493666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nucodiangelo/pseuds/nucodiangelo
Summary: “The thing about grief no one tells you about is how it doesn’t get easier to deal with. It’s been three years since- It’s been three years, and it still feels like a fresh wound. Like I’ve been bleeding out slowly but surely ever since, and nothing I do can make the wound scab over."Or, Richie does his first interview in three years.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 20
Kudos: 58





	Richie Tozier: On grief, childhood trauma, friendship and love

**Author's Note:**

> I'm truly sorry for this.
> 
> this is a doozy, so here's the TWs:  
> homophobia, internalized homophobia, sonia (emotional incest), drug / addiction mention, major character death (canon), descriptions of violence (canon), grief, reference to racism and antisemitism, just real fucking sad stuff, sorry.

Richie Tozier enters the cafe looking nervous. He’s wearing a colourful striped sweater and jeans, and he walks towards our table like he’s scared someone’s going to stop him; ask him to leave. Walks like he doesn’t belong here, even though we’re meeting in a little hipster cafe in the Village. It’s something entirely different from how he used to carry himself three years ago, before he fled the stage at his sold out show in Chicago, after forgetting the rest of his set only thirty seconds in. 

He sits down opposite of me on the little tiled table, and gives me a shy smile. He looks familiar too, in his tortoise shell glasses and curly dark hair. There’s something sad about his expression that I’ve only seen in recent pictures of him in tabloids. It’s somehow more heartbreaking up close.

I’m the first person he’s agreed to talk to after his sudden disappearance three years ago. After the show he bombed, he had left Chicago, not heard from for a month, only to come back looking defeated and grief-stricken. _A personal traged_ y is the only explanation the public got for his sudden disappearance. He hasn’t done any public appearances or interviews since. I’m both thrilled and horrified to learn more, as I was when he first responded to my email about setting up the interview. Some part of me is scared by the volurable look on his face. He looks young, and scared. 

“Sorry. I’m shitting myself. I’m so fucking nervous.” He laughs drily after a waitress has taken our orders. We both get tea. It really sets the tone for the rest of our conversation, “I’ve never been good at talking about the bad stuff in my life. Or at least without joking about it. My therapist says that’s a normal response to trauma, but it sucks. The more you joke, the less seriously people take you. Which is a given, obviously, but having no one who asks you how you are, how you really are, makes you feel really alienated and lonely. I put this on myself, I know I did. For joking about my shitty relationships, or my parents deaths, or whatever. No one takes the fucking clown seriously.” He smiles a little at that, like an inside joke I can’t quite figure out. 

“That’s why I haven’t gone back to comedy. I can’t joke shit away anymore. I don’t want to. I went through some bad fucking shit, and it just feels gross to even think about talking about it, because I know I’ll make jokes out of sheer discomfort, and I don’t want to.”

The waitress comes back with our drinks. Green tea for me, black tea for him. We take a few moments to take a sip. His hands are shaking slightly around his mug.

“The thing about grief no one tells you about is how it doesn’t get easier to deal with. It’s been three years since- It’s been three years, and it still feels like a fresh wound. Like I’ve been bleeding out slowly but surely ever since, and nothing I do can make the wound scab over. Therapy, time to reflect, going back to Temple, talking to my friends, drinking, rehab. I even went back to coke, which was a dumb fucking idea, obviously. Don’t do hard drugs kids.”

I ask him about the grief. What happened to him three years ago. It’s obviously what he’s here to tell me about. He takes a long moment to stare out the window. Part of me thinks he’s going to leave, but then he just sighs and looks back at me. 

“When my parents died- It’s been ten years since my dad died, five years since my mom’s passing. After, my sister told me it gets easier with time, and to some degree it did. And after losing them both so early in my life, I thought I had a grip on grief. I thought I knew it, like an old friend. Stupid of me to think so, since I’ve never had a grip on literally anything in my entire life.” He chuckles dryly, sipping his tea again. He grimaces, “And then the two most important people in my life both died within a week, and I realised I might not be as strong as I initially thought. And that says a lot, since I’ve never considered myself to be very strong.”

“That’s why I left the stage, three years ago. I got a phone call from an old friend right before I went on, and- I’ve been hiding for a long time. My childhood wasn’t very good. Or it was brilliant, in some ways - it really was. I had the best friends in the entire world. Six of them. Bill, Beverly, Mike, Ben, Stan and Edd-” He chokes up a bit, looking pale and blurry around the edges, “Sorry. And Eddie. We had so much fun, back when we were too young to realise that we maybe didn’t really have it that good. We were a group of misfits. Beverly [Marsh] was treated so fucking shitty, in grade school. Kid’s are fucking cruel, and young girls are often treated with such a lack of respect, it’s honestly sickening to think about. Girls are never really allowed to be kids, to be young and carefree, the way boys are. Boys are allowed time to grow, girls aren’t. Someone spread one rumour about her, a fake rumour, and suddenly she was the town whore, at fucking twelve. How fucked is that? Sexualized by kids and adults alike before she even hit puberty.” 

“Stan was one of like six Jewish kids in our shitty little backwaters town, so obviously the antisematic assholes in town had a field trip with him. I got away easier, considering my mom was a lutheran christian, and my dad never practised. Mike was black, and an orphan, so you can just imagine the kind of shit he went through. We grew up in Derry, which is like… A fucking nightmare. Up until 2016 it had the highest record of hate crimes in all of America, which says _a lot_. So yeah, Mike went through hell. Ben moved into town when we were thirteen. He was a bigger kid. Now, later in life, it’s occurred to me that he wasn’t even that big. Just, an easy target for a bunch of hateful kids who needed someone to pick on to feel superior. Not that fat people don’t deserve fucking human respect; That’s not what I meant.” He takes a moment, and looks angry. It’s easier for me to look at him like that. His anger is easier to deal with than his sadness. But the melancholy look in his eyes returns quickly, as if that’s his new default. It’s such a contrast to the goofy, aloof look we’ve all come to expect from Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier over the last decade. 

“Bill [Denbrough] - By the way, I have gotten their approval to tell you this, so don’t worry about using their full names. People would have quickly figured out who I’m talking about anyways. This interview is partly for them too. They wanted me to be the one to talk about this shit - fucking assholes. So anyways: Bill had a bad stutter. It was even worse when he was a child, than how it’s now, as an adult. Sometimes it took him so long to get a sentence out, he would go all red in the face, angry and frustrated by the way he couldn’t get the words out. We always- I mean obviously I made fun of him, because I’m an asshole. I wasn’t better back then, because I was insecure and a little mean. But we were the only people in town who would be quiet and wait for him to get out whatever he wanted to say. Everyone else would laugh, or try to guess what he was trying to say, which only made it worse, for him. So we would sit still, patiently - which was hard for me. Patience is not something that comes easy to me. But we waited for him. He was the coolest guy I knew, despite the stutter. We used to call him Big Bill, not because he was the tallest of us, but because he was our hero. We always listened to him, because when he spoke, he was honest - sometimes brutally so - and genuine. We listened, and we followed him wherever he went - even into hell.”

“And Eddie was small - skinny and barely five feet when we were thirteen. And he had this horrible mother. The whole town knew she treated him like her little plaything, and no one ever did anything. She had Munchausen by Proxy, and was convinced he was this weak, breakable little thing; sick and helpless. Have you ever heard of emotional incest? She never touched him, I would have raised hell upon her if she did. No it- His father died when we were very young, and his mother kind of replaced her husband with Eddie. Expected the sort of domestic love from Eddie that a husband would give. It was fucked. He used to- God, he was such a wacky fucking kid. He used to carry around two fucking fanny packs, like some middle aged white dad going through a midlife crisis. I think I made fun of him for that more than the bullies did. So Eddie was obviously an easy target, with his noodle arms and big innocent eyes and inhaler.” 

“And me. I was-” He pauses again, looking pale. He takes a large gulp of water, “I was gay. Or, you know, still am, obviously.”

“That’s the first time I’ve said that to anyone besides my therapist, my sister, and Bev, Ben, Mike and Bill.”

He takes a moment to breathe. I make sure to fill the silence by telling him I’m also queer, and he’s safe with me, in this little half-empty cafe. I won’t include what he just told me in the interview if he would rather I didn’t. I would never tell a soul if he doesn’t want me to.

He shakes his head, “No. I told you for a reason. I think it’s about damn time I let myself be honest. Bev keeps telling me the longer I wait the harder it will be. And it’s stupid. I’ve hid for so long, and I’ve been scared for as long as I can remember. Again, doesn’t say much, because I have severe childhood trauma and didn’t remember the first eighteen years of my life until that phone call in Chicago, when I heard Mike’s voice for the first time in over twenty years. So I’m gay, and it’s not like I ever told anyone back in Derry, but people knew there was something fruity about me. If it was the way I carried myself, or the way I looked at Eddie, I’m not sure. But I grew up with slurs engraved into my forehead - metaphorically - and tagged onto my school locker - literally. That’s what I started to say earlier, about hiding. I’m sorry, adult ADHD is a pain in the ass. I tend to go on tangents and forget what I even started to say in the first place.”

“So I got the phone call from Mike, and I suddenly remembered my entire fucked up childhood. The bullies weren't even the worst part. You know, most goofy looking boys get the absolute shit beat out of them at some point. So the beatings and the slurs and the alienation in a racist, homophobic smalltown wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was growing up in a town with a fucking serial killer on the loose, who’s MO was targeting young children - Oh and I’m being literal here. Not everyone has heard of it. The story was buried by the city officials, and the Derry police department. Fuck those assholes. Fuck corrupt politicians and fuck the cops.” 

“But yeah, at thirteen, me and my friends were hunted by this serial killer, and it obviously fucked us up a bit. Bill wrote about it in his latest book, in the acknowledgements. About his brother, so I’m not gonna go into that. But yes, I’m two minutes away from curtain call at the biggest show of my entire career, and I just remembered Bozo the clown - yeah, a serial killer dressed as a clown, real fucking creative - and I just loose it.”

“I’m not going to bore you with the gory details of our friendship reunion, or running into _another_ serial killer - can you believe that shit? As if one wasn’t enough, one of our childhood bullies went crazy and escaped a psychiatric hospital and went after us. And then, Stan and Eddie died. Out of respect for their privacy, I’m not gonna tell anyone how, but they were just _gone_. My childhood best friend and the love of my life, gone before I could even blink. Right after I finally remembered them again. I didn’t even get to see Stan again, twenty fucking years without him, and then he’s dead.”

“So yeah, the thing they don’t tell you about grief is that it’s so fucking all consuming. I feel like an amputee victim… Like some vital body part was sawed off me three years ago and I’m walking around with the phantom pains. It feels like the monsters from my childhood got me after all. Some days I just feel fucking dead.”

I ask him why he’s decided to tell the public this story after so long. What’s changed. Why now. 

He looks thoughtful, “It was Eddie’s birthday last week. Or, it would have been his birthday. He would have turned 44. God, we’re getting so old. And I went to his grave. That’s why I moved to New York; to be close to him. I go at least once a week to weep over his headstone like some forlorn widow. I suppose in some ways I am. We were never together, but we also sort of were, in all the ways that mattered. So I was sitting at his grave, just talking out of my ass about the few boring things I had got up in the few days since I was there last. And I was just hit with this overwhelming need to tell the entire world about how much I loved him. He deserves to be recognized as the love of my life.”

“Both Eddie and Stan would have wanted me to talk about this. They always saw through my bullshit. They always knew who I was. And it felt like a cop out, to keep hiding. I’m alive after all. Who the fuck am I to hide when I have the chance to be real and volunerable and honest?” He shrugs, “Stan would probably take one look at me at that reunion and know how fucking scared of honesty I was. How fucking deep into the closet I had forced myself. Stan had a way of looking right through me, and he had this fucking look he used to give me. Like a disappointed father. Fucking horrified me when we were younger. He was always wise beyond his years, but never in a boring way. And he was the best friend I’ve ever had. I’m so fucking lucky he never got sick of my chronic foot in mouth decease. I’m so fucking lucky to know that I was his best friend too. I like to think he’s looking up at me - that fucker is definitely in hell, if hell even exists. I imagine him looking up at me with that fucking look on his face, deadpanned and serious, all, _come on Trashmouth, what are you so fucking scared off? You survived two different serial killers, get over your fucking internalized homophobia._ ”

Tozier has always been known for his impressions. Part of his act that no one could deny was funny, despite his otherwise crude and slightly problematic jokes. And while I have never met his friend [Stan], it’s like he’s there with us. It’s like I’m hearing him talk. I can tell [Stan] was near and dear to him, with the way his eyes go soft and slightly haunted as he speaks of him.

“I have his voice in the back of my mind at all times. It’s like he’s haunting me. I won’t put it past him. Like he won’t rest until I come out. I’m going to print out this interview, fly to Georgia, and put it on his grave. Fuck you, Stan, rest in fucking peace already.” He smiles slightly, as if he thinks [Stan] would enjoy that comment. 

“And Eddie. God, he would be so angry at me if he knew to which extent I was hiding. He loved yelling at me when we were kids. He was a feral little thing, all fury and rebellion. He was loud as fuck too. People used to think I was the one who couldn’t keep my mouth shut, but Eddie couldn’t be fucking stopped once he started. And I loved pushing his buttons, making shitty _your mom jokes_ or wrestling his hypochondriac ass into the dirty ground, or trying to push his head under the water at the local quarry, and he would go off like a bomb. Just scream and rant and snap at me until he was red in the face, and I loved every second of it. And there’s no doubt in my mind that he loved it too. It was our love language. We would bicker and fight, and laugh so hard we cried. I was in love with him before I even knew what the word love meant. I took one look at his scrawny ass when we were six, all eyebrows and eyes that took up half his face, and it was over for me. I don’t think I ever believed in soulmates, and then I remembered him again, and was like - oh fuck me, that’s my soulmate, isn’t it?”

It’s beautiful, the way he speaks of [Eddie]. It feels warm, and comforting. Like reading a romance novel that just grabs you by the heart and makes you believe that true, unconditional love actually exists. I’m immediately taken with it. I’ve never cried during an interview, but I feel overwhelmed by Tozier’s love. 

“When we were younger, I used to go out of my way to make sure Eddie knew he wasn’t sick or made of porcelain. I would make fun of him every time he took his medication, or shoved dirt into his mouth, or challenge him to jump from the cliff sides and into the dirty water below. Eddie never backed down from a challenge, especially from me. I think he felt like he had so much to prove because of the way other people treated him. So even when he was freaking out about parasites and tetanus or whatever, he did whatever we did. He followed us into the sewers when we were thirteen, just because Bill and I did it. He followed us into a dilapidated house full of needles and shit and mold, just because Bill and I did it.” He smiles a bit, eyes glossy.

“In the house he managed to fall through a hole in the floor, and broke his arm. It was brutal. A clean break. Bone sticking out under the skin. And I think I freaked out more than he did, and I remembered seeing someone set a bone on TV, and I thought, fuck, Eddie’s hurt and I love him so much and I need to help. And he was screaming at me the entire time, and our friends were freaking out around us about me having no medical training. But I didn’t care. I just wanted to fix it, because I felt like it was my fault he was hurt. He wouldn’t have walked into the house if I hadn’t walked in first. I knew he wouldn’t have. So I set it.” Tozier laughs, “It was a stupid thing to do, in retrospect. He told me, three years ago, that the arm had bothered him his entire life, and doctors kept asking him if he had ever broken it. Obviously he didn’t remember that day when we were thirteen until the day of the reunion, but the fucker immediately started yelling at me again. It was one of those moments where your heart fucking sighs in your chest and you just think, _I’m home_.”

“The thing about grief no one tells you about, is that it’s a cruel fucking joke. Comedy is all about timing, which considering I’ve dedicated my life to making people laugh since I was a lanky ten year old with coke bottle glasses, I should be aware of that. I’ve always been bad at comedic timing. I’ve always said things at the wrong time. So you could imagine how I felt when I realised I was gay, and completely, overwhelmingly in love with Eddie, at the exact moment he was dying in my arms. Because that’s an extra fucked up fact about the whole situation. I held the love of my life as he died. Fucked up shit. Psychologists across the globe would love to go deeper into that. I’m going to be famous in the mental health field.”

“I’ve never believed in God. But if that motherfucker is real, I’ll break in through the pearly gates and fight him with my bare fists. What sort of fucked up shit is that? Giving me Eddie back for only two days before ripping him away in the most cruel way possible. It’s one big joke. And for the first time I am not laughing. My life has always been a bit of a joke, but that shit just - It was a bit _too_ much. To say the least.”

“I’ve never believed in the concept of marriage. My parents were good - they loved each other in all the right ways. So I don’t know if it was my deep self-loathing, or my deeply repressed sexuality, but I never wanted marriage, never thought I would find someone to love me enough to want to spend their life with me. But I took one look at Eddie, three years ago in a Chinese restaurant in our hometown, a town that tried to kill us in multiple ways, and I thought, _oh_. Shit, of course. Another cruel joke was that Eddie was already married. Isn’t that the funniest shit you’ve ever heard? I loved Eddie for over a decade, forgot about him because of fucking repressed memories caused my trauma, loved him without knowing it for another two decades, remembered him, saw him again, loved him even more, and then lost him forever.”

He puts his hand on the table, and I finally notice the ring on his finger. It’s a simple gold band, engraved with two initials. R+E. 

“I got this ring the second I was out of my grief stricken shock. Two weeks after he died when I could finally drag myself up and out of bed and leave the motel in Derry. I might never have got to marry Eddie, because the universe is cruel and fucking homophobic, but some part of me knows we were married already. Two souls destined to love each other till death. It’s just a bit inconvenient that his death was so much earlier than mine. So I got the rings, one for me and one he was buried with. I had to fight every person possible to make that happen. He was it for me.”

“So Stan and Eddie died, during the same week. And life moved on, somehow. It’s insane to me that it’s been over three years. I’ve been in a haze ever since, just going through the motions like a ghost. I have good friends. Trauma bonds people together. So I have four people who know exactly what happened, both when we were thirteen, and again when we were forty. We spend a lot of time together. I think that’s the only thing that’s gotten me through the past few years. I live with Mike and Bill. Bev and Ben live just outside New York, so I see them all the time. We visit Stan’s wife regularly. We’re all a bit broken, and completely codependent, but at least we’re alive together. Eddie and Stan would have wanted that. I strongly believe they would both have risen from their graves and physically dragged us together if we had split up again three years ago. Some days I think that the only thing keeping me alive is knowing that Eddie and Stan would be real fucking angry at me if I didn’t keep on living after they were gone.” He sighs, and stares down at his tea, which has gone cold by this point. The sky outside has gone dark. I have no idea how long we’ve been here. How long I’ve been listening to his story. 

“The thing about grief no one tells you about is that it’s sort of comforting. I can’t imagine living my life normally, after losing them the way I did. It’s sort of nice to know that I loved someone this much. It sounds fucked up, but after walking around for twenty years thinking no one had ever loved me, truly loved me, it feels right to grieve, to truly grieve. I don’t ever want to lose that feeling, no matter how debilitating it is some days.”

It’s nearing the end of the interview. I have barely taken any notes the past hours, too enraptured by the way Tozier speaks. It doesn’t matter. His words will be engraved into my heart for years to come. I might never forget his tone, his love, his affection for his friends. 

“I didn’t think I would ever be able to talk about this with anyone besides Mike, Bill, Ben and Bev. But I read your email - I never really check my email anymore. It was a complete coincidence that I did that day. I don’t know what compelled me to log into my old business account. But I did. And I opened your email, and read your very simple words, and I just knew it was time. So here I am, thirty years after almost dying, three years after almost dying again, and I’m being honest.”

“Before we split ways, and I spend a nerve wrecked week waiting for the interview to come out, I wanna really punctuate the fact that I’ve loved six people my entire life. I wanna make sure people know that Beverly Marsh, Mike Hanlon, Bill Denbrough, Ben Hanscom, Stan Uris and Eddie Kaspbrak are my soulmates. They’re the best people I’ve ever known, and I will carry my love for them for the rest of my life. I know I’ve said some truly heartbreaking things today, but that’s what I want people to take away from this. I’m ok because I got to love them. I’m ok because I know they loved me. Please hold your loved one close; hug them and kiss them and make sure they know how much you love them.”

He pays for our tea, and I ask him if I can give him a hug. We both cry as we embrace, and I know, deep in my heart, that I will never feel like I’ve done during these hours we’ve been speaking. I’m overwhelmed with adoration for this man, who’s been through so much, more than any human should have to go through. He’s so full of love, and no part of me questions his bravery, his strength, and his pure honesty. I don’t ask him if he’s ever going to return to comedy, or the spot-light, ever again. It doesn’t matter what he does next. I’m just grateful I got to see him, got to spend these hours with him, got to hear him speak so openly about grief, childhood trauma, friendship and love.

**Author's Note:**

> all clowntown mutuals please don't block and report me.  
> my twt is @richietozieer , come yell at me there...


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